Panel Discussion on RockPaperStartups: How Can Big Brands Help Startups?

Half way through the first day of RockPaperStartup conference, our Editor-in-Chief Ivan Brezak Brkan welcomed panelists from Google Ventures, Vipnet, Paypal and Eleven who discussed how big brands can help startups and how should they approach them - not just for the money, but for mentoring and other projects as well. Panel features Daniel Burka from Google Ventures, Miljenko Graovac from Vipnet, Corado Tomassoni from PayPal and Diylan Dmitrov from Bulgarian accelerator Eleven.

Half way through the first day of RockPaperStartups conference, our Editor-in-Chief Ivan Brezak Brkan welcomed panelists from Google Ventures, Vipnet, Paypal and Eleven who discussed how big brands can help startups and how should they approach them – not just for the money, but for the mentoring and other projects as well. Panel features Daniel Burka from Google Ventures, Miljenko Graovac from Vipnet, Corado Tomassoni from PayPal and Diylan Dmitrov from Bulgarian accelerator Eleven.

Corrado Tomassoni

This is PayPal’s first conference in Croatia and we are very excited for being here. In the late 2009. PayPal opened a platform for startups which consists out of special agreements with some of the world’s most famous accelerators. We also started workshops who’s job is to help startups as well as understand them and their needs. Developers and founders can get in touch with us trough online channels, community channels and also approach us at hackatons we are organizing throughout the world.

Diylan Dmitrov

Big corporations can help startups in several different ways, first being financial. They can also provide them with working places and give them an access to recourses like PayPal does. Through those big companies, we are able to provide some 725,000 discounts for startups at Eleven because corporations are willing to give back to community and scout for some young talent.

Miljenko Graovac

Although Vipnet is not investing in startups directly, we are here to see which startups make sense for us and our services. We have a user base of two million customers, we have experience in go to market situations. Vipnet can also help with international presence since it’s a part of Telekom Austria. You can contact us via social networks, send us email, or approach us on conferences like these.

Daniel Burka

Part of our my job at Google Ventures is to help young startups with design. Being a mentor to them, I get to see some startups who neglect design and this is where big corporations such as Google can help. Through Google Ventures, we are helping them focus on solving the real problems and eventually finishing what they’ve started.

Ivan Brezak Brkan

Ivan is the founder and editor of Netokracija who started his tech-journalistic career writing for TechCrunch and various Crotian tech/business magazines, but also advising companies like Microsoft and Kolektiva on their internet presence. Forbes has called him “The internet aristocrat” in its special “Generation 2013” issue. Ivan has also been a startup mentor and advisor at Hubraum, Seedcamp, Eleven, Shift Split, How to Web and others, as well as being the director of Netokracija’s own RockPaperStartups and OMGcommerce conferences.

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